


In Too Deep

by devilswreckedchewtoy (AmberFyre)



Series: Fight For All You Know [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, RP verse fic, Season 09 AU, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 06:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberFyre/pseuds/devilswreckedchewtoy
Summary: Sam had believed that while he would cross a lot of lines for someone he loved, there were some lengths to which he wouldn't go. Maybe... he was wrong.





	In Too Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wolfofthe141-archive for an RP verse. Unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own. As per usual, I own nothing but the story. Originally posted on tumblr.

In Too Deep

_“I just can't walk away_

_'cause after loving you_

_I can never be the same”_

Red : “Never Be The Same” – Innocence & Instinct

 

It was a messy case.  Not just because the bodies had been torn apart, which would have been bad enough.  No, this one was messy in a different way.  A whole family out camping had been torn apart… except for one member.  A young girl who’d been traumatized enough that she hadn’t even spoken since she’d been found.

Until Ben anyway.

Sitting there in the motel room, trying to narrow down the possibilities of what they’d been tracking (and this was the third family so far, though the first where one had been left alive) Sam considered Ben and his way with kids.  A not so random thought of what he must have been like with his own daughter passed through his mind along with a sliver of sorrow.  More for Ben than anything else.  Even if he’d never had to experience that particular loss, losing a child was a pain there was no comparison for.

His eyes flicked from the screen of his laptop to Ben, sitting across the table and flipping through the case file, trying to see if there was anything in it that might give them a better clue to what they were tracking down.  Faint shadows drifted in the backs of his eyes and Sam wondered if he was thinking about Dawn and Elise and what might have been.

Sam turned his eyes back to the laptop, chewing on the inside of his cheek, wishing, and not for the first time that he could change the past.  Even if Elise and Dawn living meant he’d never have met Ben, never have fallen for him or had him in his life, if there was a way he could have done it he would have.  Though it did cause a queer pain to shiver through his chest.

No point in dwelling over it now, as he couldn’t.  And at least they had each other now.  Both of them having been through too damn much and carrying too many weights and too much blame for things they couldn’t change.  And Sam loved Ben intensely.  Would do just about anything for him or to keep him safe.  Or as safe as you could get being a hunter.

However, Sam couldn’t focus on the screen in front of him, the young girl’s wide blue eyes, full of horror and tears, flashing through his mind.  She’d lost her whole world in a bloodbath and that sucked on all kinds of levels.  Sam knew that much.

Maybe it was just that the thoughts were already in his head and circling restlessly, or maybe it was something that had been building under his conscious mind for a while and he hadn’t realized it.  But suddenly a thought struck him.

_What if I lost Ben like that?_

Not a new thought or a welcome one.  They were hunters.  Dying bloody was a possibility every damn time they took a job.  Sam just tried not to dwell on it any more than he had to.  But he was finding, with every day that passed, that Ben had come to mean more to him that he’d thought possible.  It scared him, sometimes, just how intense what he felt for Ben was, how deep it ran.

Which is likely what triggered the next thought.

_How far would you go to keep that from happening?_

It slithered into his head and coiled around his thoughts leaving him cold all over.  Because he’d been down this path, he and Dean both.  It never went led anywhere good.  Hell, that was one of the reasons he and his brother had ended up going their separate ways before he ran into Ben again.  The damn Trials that had fucked him up so badly and left him almost dead.  Dean being so desperate not to let him go that he shoved an angel in him and lied about it for months.  Kevin dead as a result.

The memories churned his gut, along with the words he’d said to Dean.  He’d meant them.  There were lengths to which he’d go but he wouldn’t go that far.

Would he?

He could feel the color drain from his face, though, as a sudden whirlwind of images paraded through his head of the various gory deaths he’d seen over the years- replaced with Ben’s face and body in every single one.  The vividness of it shocked him enough that he jerked as though he’d been sucker punched, a soft gasp escaping before he could stop it.

Ben looked up when Sam flinched so violently, frowning.  Unaware of the path Sam’s thoughts had taken, he took in the way Sam’s face had paled and the haunted and desperate look in Sam’s unseeing hazel eyes and wondered what had caused that reaction.

“Sam?  What is it?”

Sam blinked and swam up out of the mental carnage, feeling sick, a sharp pain in his chest like he’d been stabbed with a heated blade that had been left in the wound and looked over at Ben.  Not dead.  Not bloody.  Frowning in confusion and concern but alive.

He drew in a shallow breath as he stared and the thought came again.

_How far would you go to keep that from happening?_

The way Sam stared at him had Ben scared now, and he didn’t even know why.  He only knew he hadn’t seen that kind of look in Sam’s eyes before.  Like his entire world had suddenly ended.  He reached across the table to touch Sam’s hand, still frowning but half afraid to ask.  He didn’t know if it had to do with the case or if something else had flashed through Sam’s mind, but he looked like he needed some kind of a hold in reality.

When Ben touched his hand another shudder ran through Sam before he gripped it tight and held on.  He shoved the images into whatever hole they’d crawled out of and tried to nail the lid on.

“I’m fine,” he managed to get out, though it wasn’t very convincing, his voice quiet and strangled.

The cold of Sam’s fingers and the way he gripped so tightly had Ben reacting without really thinking.  He stood up, tugging Sam up in the process, and pulled him over to the.  There he tugged Sam down into his arms and held him.  He wasn’t good with words, never really had been.  But he could do this.  He could hold Sam until he figured out whether he needed to talk about it or not.

Sam went without protest, another shiver wracking him, and let Ben wrap his arms around him.  He curled into the embrace and worked to control the panic that seemed to have taken root in his gut.

It was bad enough to think about Ben dying.  He’d had nightmares of that, but he could force them away and just consider it part of the job.  What made him cold to his core was that he didn’t know how to answer that question.  He truly didn’t know how far he would go.  But his traitorous thoughts kept ticking, running down a list of all the ways he knew of, all the things he knew could be done, and kept going and going and not reaching a point where Sam knew he would say no.

How far would he go?  Where was the line he wouldn’t cross?

He had no idea.

And that scared him more than anything else.


End file.
